Once In Your Life
by Calico Yorki
Summary: Mistakes were made. A Vira fanfic.
1. Prologue

My name is Vira, and I hate everything right now. I cannot tell you how much I hate Neopia, how much I hate those idiot news anchors, how much I hate newspapers, and how much I hate how I look. It would be nice if I could just check out the news without finding myself being made into the ugly butt of some snide joke. They just _had_ to go and joke about my looks, didn't they? They actually called me _fat!_ I _know _I'm not fat! They just, they just make me feel so hateful! I try to keep that hate tamped down, and I can do it, but they just run their hateful mouths, and it makes me want to hurt someone! I don't want to hurt anyone anymore! Ohhh they all think I'm so funny! Well, I'm just splitting my sides! I'm going to finish writing this, then I'll fly right to Neopia Central, news headquarters! Yes, I'll share the good times, I'll laugh, they'll scream! _They'll see how funny it is! __**I'm the most hilarious joke in all of Neopia!**_


	2. Pursuit

Outside of her house, on a dark, stormy night, a little Usul girl cried. She cried, and cried, too scared to go home. Her petpet Warf cowered against her, whining piteously. Then, with a lightning crack, a figure appeared in a rustling and snapping of leathery wings. Horned, with glaring red and green eyes, and those tattered wings, and that narrow tail, she made the little girl so, so scared. It was just like a monster that her parents had told her of, once. A monster named Vira...

Kneeling down, she seemed more and more similar to an Acara. She licked her lips idly, scratching frenetically behind her ear. Then, she popped her neck without even laying a hand there, and looked back to the Usul. "Lost little girl," she whispered, "did you come all the way out here looking for that Warf?" She flicked out one wing, and held it above the Usul. it was quite warm and dry under there, to be honest. The Usul nodded, the fur on her cheeks soaked with rain and tears. She was cold, she was wet, she was tired, she was scared, and she was old enough to know that anyone from the Haunted Woods appearing on a stormy night could never be good.

The short woman extended a hand, and carefully minding her own claws, shook that of the little Usul. "Yes, I am Vira," she sighed, "now puh-leeease get it out of your head that I'm a bloodthirsty monster. I have anger issues, but I would never hurt a little thing like you." Vira gently scratched the Warf below the chin, calming him down. "All I ask is that you introduce me to your family, and let me share dinner with you," she whispered. It was then that her stomach growled, long and loud.

"I am so, so hungry."

... ... ...

On the edge of the Haunted Woods, a sable-robed Purple Kyrii with dull fur, and a long, wispy beard sat on a large stone. His eyes were a cloudy gray, and twin scars criss-crossed the side of his muzzle. A Slorgclops sat beside him, and he paid no heed to the massive volumes of slime that it exuded in its stress. He gently petted it on its sloppy head, nuzzling his fingers between its ears.

"Yes, little one, I understand," he sighed in his wavering voice. "Vira must come back to these Woods soon, or she shall never return at all. These feet have walked many roads, my eyes have seen many, many things, but I have never seen a more pitiful child than her." Coughing, a spurt of what looked like ectoplasm bubbbled out of his mouth, and floated away. He continued to cough and cough, until a stream was surging from his mouth.

Laid flat on his back, atop the rock, he gently closed his eyes as this life ebbed away. The Slorgclops pawed at him, mewling and gurgling, so sad that it had to lose another friend so soon. Then, another hand gently patted it, and it rolled its eye up to try to see who it was. It seemed to be some kind of Alien Aisha, with a thick, short beard of narrow tendrils, tired eyes, and slightly sagging upper-ears. Its gloved hand gently petted the Slorgclops, as its other hand raised a remote control-like device connected by a cord to its chest.

Pressing a switch, lighting up the panel, it began to speak. "_You have no need to fear, precious little creature,_" it said so, so softly, "_you are merely witnessing the beginning of a new chapter, in a story that doesn't have an end._"


	3. crunch

In Neopia Central, a robed, young, male Neopet picked his way across a strewn field of rubble. He seemed to be a Lupe, with two scars criss-crossed over the right side of his muzzle. He moved smoothly across the shattered masonry, amongst flickering flames and dark smog. Then, he heard a horrible noise. It was a snuffling, slurping, crunching noise, like something trying to eat too much food for the size of its mouth.

Peeking out from behind a pile of rubble, he watched a fiend with tattered wings and twisted horns, facing away from him, eat something voraciously. He tried to silently creep out from behind the pile of rubble, but in an instant, _she_ spun around and screeched at him. Her angry scarlet and sickly green eyes blazed with fury, as she prepared to blast him with Scorch and Frost at the same time. Then, she began to giggle. It started off as a tiny, tittering noise, before it quickly grew into a deranged chattering. "Hey, what a face! That scar looks familiar," Vira pealed with laughter. "You must have been cut-up by my dagger! Does it hurt, kid?" As a matter of fact, as Vira's eyes grew brighter and brighter, the Lupe's scar pulsed and grew hotter with pain. It tugged his mouth into a half-grimace, but his eyes were stony.

From beneath his hood, the gray-eyed Lupe said calmly, "Vira, you have to go back to the Haunted Woods. It is not safe for you here." She had turned her back again. Once again, Vira was tucking into some food. The Lupe carefully circled around her, giving the mutated Acara a wide berth, never turning even his side to her. When he got to her other side, he saw that she had killed a family of Tennas, and was now gnawing on one of them. Closing his eyes and giving a long, shuddering sigh, he forced himself to remain calm. Through the squelches and ripping and snaps, he stayed calm. "Oh, you poor, poor child, you," he said sorrowfully, "what has been done to you can never be forgiven." He murmured a prayer under his breath.

By the time he opened his eyes once again, the Tenna were all cleaned of their flesh. Vira was licking her fingers and smacking her lips, little splotches of blood in the corners of her mouth, on her claws, on her dress. She grinned up at the Lupe, but the corner of her eye was faintly twitching. "I am very hungry, you see," she breathed softly, "and Neopia just has so many snacks to offer. Ohhh yes it's delicious! I never want to eat the food in the Haunted Woods again!" She cackled giddily, wings fluttering a bit.

"Here, they have _baked beans_ and _green beans_ and _roasted ham_ and they have big _glistening and wobbling bowls of jelly!_" Her eyes grew brighter and more feverish, and the Lupe had to resist the urge to touch and try to comfort his scars. "I want the stews and the loaves and the fried snacks, the Neopians here eat _cakes_ and _pies_ and little itty-bitty _candies!_ All of it's so delicious!" Rivers of drool now soaked the fur about Vira's mouth. "_Meat and skin and flesh, juices and fats - !_"

" - Stop it, Vira, stop," the Lupe tried to calm her down, by now not even bothering with saving face and pressing his hand hard into his screaming-hot scar.

" - _Ripping gnashing meat tearing bones snapping fatty juices running down my face! I want to eat it all, I don't want to be hungry ever again_ - "

" - Vira, stop it right now. You don't understand, you're not just hungry, you're _dying_ - "

" - _I want to scoop it all up into my mouth and __**gulp it all down and not chew not once**_- "

" - Your immortality is depending on something in the Haunted Woods. Your body is dying here, and your hunger is trying to barely keep you together. If we don't get you back, you'll never be able to eat enough to survive - "

" - _HOTDOGS!_" Screaming with delight, Vira took off in one beat of her wings. The mighty gust sent the Tenna skulls rolling past the Lupe's feet. He looked down at them, then looked back at her retreating form in the sky.

Taking his wrist out of one billowing sleeve, the Lupe looked down at his watch. Popping the face open, he looked down into a mysterious plate of whitish metal with glowing, blue-green circuitry. Carefully, he turned a single knob as far back as it would go, and flipped the face back on.

When he looked back up, the Lupe found the world had stopped. The clouds skipped back and forth slightly in the sky, whilst the sunlight had turned a grainy bluish green color.

The Lupe sighed, and went running in the direction that Vira had flown. That had bought him five minutes, seventeen seconds, and counting.

"I'm exactly the right age for this," he panted, "but I'm very tired of it."


End file.
